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CATHARINE CLARK GALLERY - THE LUGGAGE STORE - ONSIX GALLERY AFTERMODERN GALLERY - RAYKO PHOTO VARNISH FINE ART - NATIONAL PRODUCT - TRIPLE BASE EDO SALON - RECEIVER GALLERY - HAYES VALLEY MARKET 12.9-10.05 Catharine Clark Gallery: Josephine Taylor - You Put this Animal in Me; Jil Weinstock - Waistline; John Slepian - Little_One. Comment: I found on the SFMOMA website that Josephine Taylor's unsettling undervisible jumbo ink, graphite and colored pencil compositions "address the psychological residue of childhood." OK. Not really my thing, but I like 'em because in spite of their logistical challenges, they remain in pristine condition even though they've been rolled and transported and unrolled and positioned and hung and more, I'm sure. Too many artists think that once the art's done, who cares? But people don't like binked up art. The progeny have to be cared for, and they are with Josephine Taylor. As for Jil Weinstock, her rubber-encased dresses, molded into dimensional discs, are technically respectable and draw viewers in, but then I touch one and, speaking of residue, come away with a little finger dingle. So I move to where I can angle the reflection of the ceiling lights off the disc's surface to see whether anybody besides me has been impertinent enough to touch it and, yes, apparently they have. I don't know whether Weinstock's art's supposed to have surface issues, but regardless, we're talkin' dust magnet. (I must seem like a complete philistine to the cognoscenti, blathering on about what condition art's in, but I was an antiquarian before I was a contemporarian, and not everything ages gracefully, and I don't wager on ungraceful agers.) Speaking of progeny, and humoring the ambience up, John Slepian holds court in the "Video Project Room" with his cribbed swaddled monitor baby, it's umbilical cord plugged into a wall socket, featuring an on-screen single-orificed amorphous form that responds to being held, positioned, and rocked. This is my kinda baby; changing diapers sucks-- especially if you're a dude. No residue here. Art (Josephine Taylor). John Slepian coddles digital bundle. Art (Jil Weinstock). Art (Jill Weinstock, left - Josephine Taylor, right). Art (Jill Weinstock, floor - Josephine Taylor, wall). Art ( Josephine Taylor, left - Jill Weinstock, right). *** The Luggage Store Gallery: Explosive Compulsive - Reed Anderson, Adriane Colburn, Jen Liu. Comment: Jen Liu thinks big, visionary, investigatory, mythic, elaborate, active, color rich, and competent in watercolor. Adriane Colburn contunues her delicate temporal pulmonarial exploits. Reed Anderson cuts and colors up a couple of major meditative mantric mandalic doilic expeditionary intricacies, supported by several similar smaller specimens. All good; go see. Art (Reed Anderson). Art (Jen Liu). Art (Adriane Colburn). Art (Reed Anderson). Art (Jen Liu). Art (Reed Anderson). Art (Adriane Colburn). Art (Reed Anderson). Art (Jen Liu). *** Rayko Photo Center: Exhibition by the Faculty & Staff Members of the Photography Department at City College of San Francisco. Photographers: Connie Begg, Mary Celojko, Angelica D'Antonio, Nadereh Degani, Erika Gentry, John Harding, Victoria Heilweil, Tonya Hough, Steve Kiser, Jeff Munroe, Bob Nishihira, Steve Raskin, Renee Tung, Jeff Weston, Stephanie Williamson. Comment: Based on the selection here, City College of San Francisco looks like a sensible place to study photography. Photography. Photographs. Images. Photos. Photographs. Photography. *** EDO Salon, 601 Haight St. San Francisco, CA 94117; 415.861.0131: From Finland with Tango - The Art of Tomi Lahdesmaki. Comment: Pleasant surprise-- rambling well-conceived cohesive meta-complicated digital manipulations of the romantic phantasmagoric variety by artist and graphic designer Tomi Lahdesmaki. Art. Art. Art. *** Triple Base: White Box. Artists: Becca Albee, Elyse Allen, Hanna Fushihara Aron, Andy Asp, Joseph Becker, Bert Bergen, Charles Beronio, Libby Black, Seth Childs, Chris Cobb, Brian Conley, Catherine Czacki, Robert De Saint Phalle, Chris Duncan, Tara Foley, Jim Gaylord, Allegra Gibson, Sean Horchy, Suzanne Husky, Jim Jocoy, Robert Jordan, Melissa Kaseman, Helena Keeffe, Erin Kunkel, Isaac Lin, Mariko Marrs, Jessica Martin, Jesse Michaels, Sue Pak, Ted Purves and Susanne Cockrell, Leif Ritchey, Oliver Halsman Rosenberg, Tonya Solley Thornton, Barbara Schauwecker, Emily Sevier, Wei Weng, Virginia White, Will Yackulic. Comment: The gallery is stacked tight with unopened numbered plain white boxes. Each box contains a work of art by one of the above artists. Each box is priced $25. But you can't see what's in a box unless you buy it first, so it's kind of like a grab bag without the bag, but with a box instead, so that makes it a grab box. So you buy a grab box, and after you buy it, a referee liberates the art, places it on display, and everybody gawks at it and says stuff. The gallery's like 100 square feet, there's near fifty artists in the show-- all present, of course-- and their friends are all there and the budget collectors are all rooting around, the sum total of which makes for some mungo ferkin' friction burnin' booty bumpin' chaos. The moral of the story? Twenty-five buck art moves fast in SF. I hold my camera high, point it down, flutter the shutter, and hope for the best. You're riddled with suspense, right? OK. Here... Oof. Nerk. Box sells. Gallery official extracts art. Art. Art. Oliver Halsman Rosenberg, Triple Base proprietor. Dude was kind enough to hold Suzanne Husky's fabric penis. Art. Art. Unexpected affection for Adobe don, Andrew McKinley. Art. Flood plain. *** Aftermodern Gallery: Out of Doors - A Group Exhibition. Artists: Fafi, Fawn Gehwheiler, Jesse Alexander, Deanne Cheuk, Christopher Bettig, Ben Loiz, Becky Suss, Bill Farroux, HunterGatherer, Andrew Ross, Thomas Campbell, Florencio Zavala, Stephanie Hutin, Kozyndan. Comment: Grand opening of this deliberate architectured space on Bryant between Second and Third Streets. Curator Amber Abramson, up from Los Angeles, imports those smooth sleek sunny Southland sensibilities (tilted urban) that we fogbound forest dwellers don't often see unless we shave ourselves up and head on down there. Yes, art made there is different than art made here. Don't believe me? Check it out. Good quality overall, meticulously selected. Most priced $500-$2K. My favorite-- Thomas Campbell, but nothing disappoints. Art (Thomas Campbell - like it). Art. These are interesting. Art. Art. Art (like 'em). Art. Art. Art. Art. Feng shui. Peripheral. *** Varnish Fine Art: Ron Garrigues & Charles Glaubitz. Comment: Ron Garrigues is a consummately accomplished sculptor, his art's Brancusi-esque in flavor, particularly the more abstract work, particularly from standpoints of surface, symmetry (or absence thereof), and patina. He took about 20 years off to raise the kids, he tells me, but when he reinstated himself, he did so with a vengeance, especially with respect to his political, environmental, religious, and anti-war pieces, most of which are permutations on the human skull. Prices range low to mid-ten thousands. Charles Glaubitz paintings, adherent to the urban agenda seasoned with Juxtapozian ethos, are pleasingly reasonably priced. Sculpture (Ron Garrigues). Ron Garrigues - sculpture. Art (Charles Glaubitz). Paintings (Charles Glaubitz). Head of an elephant, minus tusks (Ron Garrigues). Floor plan. Floor again. *** Red Ink Studios: Site Creations Mural Project. Artists (mural team leaders): Brian Storts and Chika Sato, David Huffman, Mitsy Avila Ovalles, Ricardo Rodriguez, Tae Kitakata, Kathryn Dunlevie, Erik Bakke. Comment: According to the handbill, Site Creations commissions groups of artists to create mural-sized works here at Red Ink, beginning in November, to be finished by December, to hang at Red Ink for the balance of the year, and then, in keeping with the Site Creations "mission of promoting and selling public art to Bay Area and national municipalities," to be sold and installed permanently at various civic locations. Well, interesting concept, but I totally don't get it. The brainchild is to talk governmental entities into buying large-scale preconceived preassembled works of art? Without even asking those entities whether they want art in the first place? Or if they want it, what they want it to look like? Or where they might want it to go? Or what size it has to be if it's gonna go there? To complicate matters, the show's layout is disjointed and uncompelling. Wake me when it's over. Kinda like it (Tae Kitakata). Maybe sell this one to Gila Bend, AZ; they can use a cloud. Art (David Huffman). Kathryn Dunlevie scores a quick cup o' soap off her mural. Art (Mitsy Avila Ovalles & Ricardo Rodriguez). *** ONSIX Gallery: Dead to Me. Artists: Grant Irish and Mark Desalvo. Comment: Hepcat haven Club 6 expands with a new bar plus ONSIX Gallery evolves into a distinct entity with an intimate exhibition space at the back. The inaugural ONSIX show presents Grant Irish sculpture and Mark Desalvo illustration. Irish features a functional cirrhotic liver fountain (not to scale), oozing gen-u-ine whiskey, the whiskey-spewing liver mounted with atypical steadfast verticality in a bedpan ($999 - bargain). Another $999 bargain is a nicely patinated bronze of an accusatory fingertip pointing through the barrel of a gun. Mark Desalvo shows skateboard decks, edgy watercolor illustrations with fifties trash fiction throwback feel, and a warm conjugal mutually gratifying man-ewe-moment painting. Good; go. Art. Grant Irish demonstrates proper use of his cirrhotic liver whiskey fountain. Mark Desalvo - art. Art (accusatory finger sculpture center). Art. Arena. *** Hayes Valley Market: A Store. Artists: Cameron Hasselbush, Zane Peach, Julia Davis, Ben Ritter, Alisa Ochoa, Daniel Hockenson, Chris Lux, Lisa Rybovich, Albert Herter, Leigh Gallagher, Doug Freedman, Jenny Marshall, Julia Leonard, Chris Baird, Don Wood, John Sweeney, Perry Lubin, more. Comment: First things first. Hayes Valley Market now has its own website. Cudos. Or maybe it's had its own website and I just found out about it. In classic Hayes Valley Market tradition, everything is everywhere; at least they've got a price list this time, but it's like trying to crack code. I recognize one piece, though-- a mechanical diaramic "Flammable Machine 001" by Andrew Zeigler for $4850, a tad pricey maybe (unless he's got the resume to back it up), but nicely done. I also like the clasped hand collages, the pen and ink multi-face drawing compilation, and two large watercolor drawings at the far left and far right corners of the main gallery. Decent-- except for the visible corrections. Face art (interesting). God/gold art (interesting). Clasped hand and forearm art - like it. Like the orange one (better in person - photo inadequate). *** Receiver Gallery: Postcards from Poketo. Artists: Isaac Lin, Chris Duncan, Alika Cooper, Deth P Sun, SP One, Susie Ghahremani, Chris Pew, PCP, Little Friends of Printmaking, Nathalie Roland, Keith Andrew Shore, Suzanne Husky, Jeana Sohn, Eun-Ha Park, Caitlin Keegan, Jillian Tamaki, Mark Mulroney, Ryan Wallace, and Tom Vadakan. Comment: The artists of Poketo examine "wanderlust and distant travel." Poketo artists make art, apparel, wallets, and parties. Tons of affordables-- mucho art under $100, almost everything under $300. Something for everyone. Buyin' time. Art. Art. Art. Poketo-abilia. Art Ectoplasm. *** Addendum: El Rey and comic art at National Product. One more from National Product. Most priced $60. Good deal. |
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